A single handmade sandy ware medium-diameter bowl rim and upper-body part-profile, which could belong to either the Mid-Late Iron Age or Early Saxon periods was discovered within a colluvial layer during works at 70 Maison Dieu Road, Dover. Regional assemblages for both periods have produced small bowls with palm cup-type profiles with, for instance, early first century BC examples from Bigbury near Canterbury (Thompson 1983, Fig.10, 8) and earlier Saxon examples from Canterbury. Rather intriguingly, the present example has hard angular calcitic inclusions, some of which are cemented to quartz grains. The only regional later Iron Age or earlier Saxon assemblages that have, in this analyst‟s experience, produced a similar inclusion type are those recovered in advance off the Channel Tunnel rail-works at the foot of the North Downs behind Folkestone. The bowl is rather crudely finished and an unlikely candidate for a traded or travelled product so that clays with similar calcitic inclusions may also occur in the Dour Valley. Irrespective, these two form and fabric interperiod similarities do not readily indicate a likely date for this sherd except that if it is of Saxon date It is a little surprising that there is no associated Roman pottery. As a result, and tentatively, a Mid-Late Iron Age date is preferred at the moment. (1)

<1> Swale and Thames Archaeological Survey Company, 2011, An Archaeological Evaluation on land at the Former Royal Mail Sorting Office, 70 Maison Dieu Road, Dover, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE31846.